Cuba's decrepit buildings no match for Hurricane Irma

HAVANA (AP) -- The historic but often decrepit buildings of
Havana and other colonial Cuban cities couldn't stand up to Hurricane Irma's
winds and rainfall, collapsing and killing seven people in one of the highest
death tolls from the storm's passage through the Caribbean.

Authorities said Monday that three more people were killed
by falling objects or drowning, pushing the death toll to 10 in Cuba and at
least 24 others in the Caribbean. It was Cuba's worst hurricane death toll
since 16 died in Hurricane Dennis in 2005.

Most of Cuba's grand old buildings were confiscated from the
wealthy and distributed to the poor and middle classes after a 1959 revolution
that promised housing, health care and education as universal rights. But with
state salaries of about $25 a month and government agencies strapped for cash,
most buildings have seen little maintenance in decades.

Tropical rain and sea spray have chewed into unpainted
facades and seeped through unpatched roofs. Trees have sprouted from balconies.
Iron rebar has rusted, sloughing off chunks of powdery concrete.

Damage wasn't limited to Havana. More than 100 houses in a
small town on Cuba's coastline were destroyed in Matanzas Province when Irma
swept through the area, leaving hundreds of people homeless.

In every neighborhood, residents talk warily about the
buildings that are one hurricane away from total collapse.

That hurricane came Saturday and Sunday as Irma ground up
the northern coast, sending chest-high seawater six blocks into Central Havana
and blasting the city with 60 mph winds.

On Galeano Street in Central Havana, a fourth-floor balcony
dropped onto a bus carrying Maria del Carmen Arregoitia Cardona and Yolendis
Castillo Martínez, both 27. In the cities of Matanzas, Ciego de Avila and
Camaguey, three men in their 50s and 60s died in building collapses. The
government noted in a sternly worded press release that each "did not
observe the behavior recommended by Civil Defense."

On Animas Street in Central Havana, 51-year-old Walfrido
Antonio Valdes Perez was caring for his older brother, Roydis, who worked as a
florist until he was diagnosed with HIV. They lived on the second floor of
building divided into 11 apartments, many of them divided by crude intermediate
floors known as "barbeques."

After midnight, as wind whipped the neighborhood, a wall
collapsed onto the roof of their building, crushing the two brothers to death.

No one noticed until the next morning, when neighbors saw a
foot sticking out of the rubble.

"We felt something, but no one imagined the roof and
barbeque had collapsed," said homemaker Yudisleidis Mederos, 34. "These
building are in really bad shape. Their room was the best one."

She and her neighbors remembered Roydis, 54, as a kind and
helpful man who had become a virtual family member, helping care for their
children, feed them and put them down for naps.

Neighbors said they were ready to evacuate Saturday but
emergency officials never asked them to leave.

On Monday, they showed the cracks running through the walls
of their building, water leaking through the halls and living spaces, naked
metal beams and loose gas pipes and electric cables.

"We've been trying to fix things for years. It's a
shame that maybe they'll come now, only after two people have died," said
homemaker Laritza Penalver, 49.

Havana was in recovery mode Monday, with crews cleaning away
thousands of fallen trees and electric restored to a handful of neighborhoods.
Schools were closed until further notice. President Raul Castro issued a
message to the nation that didn't mention the deaths, but described damage to "housing,
the electrical system and agriculture."

He also acknowledged destruction in the northern keys where
Cuba and foreign hotel management firms have built dozens of all-inclusive
beach resorts in recent years. The Jardines del Rey airport serving the
northern keys was destroyed, the Communist Party newspaper Granma reported,
tweeting photos of a shattered terminal hall littered with debris.

"The storm hit some of our principal tourist
destinations but the damage will be repaired before the high season,"
starting in November, Castro wrote.